Phantom Limb
by blue onion
Summary: You don't walk away from the Labyrinth without leaving part of yourself behind. Six years after saving Toby, a vestige of Sarah places the Underground and its king in peril and she must return to face a new and sinister addition to the Labyrinth. J/S
1. Prologue

_I'm going to make a ton of money off of this drivel and use it to buy fur coats made of endangered baby seals and omelettes made of endangered condor eggs!_

_No, seriously. Labyrinth belongs to Jim Henson and George Lucas. I'm just borrowing it. And possibly leaving some questionable stains.  
_

--

Prologue

The mirror in the corner of the room may as well have been designed for giants. The glass was shaped like a pear and the frame stood over ten feet tall on intricately carved wooden legs. Weathered from centuries of abuse, it seemed to be held together by a combination of magic and the sheer cussedness of old things that refuse to die.

It was also unspeakably filthy.

"Stop… smacking… the damn thing," wheezed the dwarf, pinching his great nostrils shut and choking back what would've been his eleventh consecutive sneeze. "Yer makin' the dust fly around and it's goin' straight up my nose."

"My good man, we haven't the time to proceed with caution!" cried his companion, a little fox decked out in full knight regalia who was currently running his gloved paws up and down the sides of the dust mirror frame in search of an opening or secret knob. As usual, he seemed oblivious to life's nasal torments. "Zounds! How must we restore this blasted thing to order?"

A great red shadow loomed over them and inched closer, peering down at the dwarf and the fox-knight. "Ludo scared," it rumbled fearfully.

"Quit yer whining," muttered the dwarf acerbically, but it was out of habit. In all honesty, he wholeheartedly shared the sentiment.

"Never fear, my brother!" cried the fox. "We shall find our way through this mire! Now if only we could activate this portal…"

In the course of his ministrations, he had wiped a great blot of dust off the glass (much of which had wound up in the dwarf's nose). He paused in thought, then stepped back to seek confirmation of his suspicions. Sure enough, the blot of relatively clean glass was faintly glowing, emanating a soft light the color of the moon.

"Aha!" exclaimed the little knight. He bolted to the other side of the cavernous room and seized the knob of an enormous wooden door, swinging it open. The yawning chasm of the night outside was visible, interspaced with dimly burning stars.

It was also interspaced with tall, apelike silhouettes with enormous hands and glowing eyes affixed directly upon the fox.

"Close it!" hissed the dwarf through his teeth, the fear palpable in his voice. "Close the door for God's sake, do you want to get us killed?"

The fox slammed the door shut and then opened it again. Inexplicable, the doorway now led to a broom closet instead of an exit. The fox scampered inside, rummaging through the cleaning supplies, and eventually emerged carrying a bucket of water, some bottles of fluid, and some rags.

"At last, I've discovered the heart of the matter!" Didymus announced triumphantly, handing a rag to each of his companions and seizing a final one for himself. "We must clean the mirror and prepare it for travel!"

"Ah," replied the dwarf, visibly relaxing. "First thing I've heard all day that makes sense." He accepted the rag, and with that, the three of them began wiping the mirror clean.

Magical artifacts respond poorly to neglect. They go into fits of depression, do things they later regret, and lash out in embarrassing or inappropriate ways. Magic is not meant to occupy attics and old boxes; its place is deeply embedded in the messy and frenetic daily paths of the living. In the case of the three comrades who were now hard at work, all this ancient mirror really needed was to feel good about itself.

The three creatures stepped back to admire their handiwork. The glass sparkled with both cleanliness and the silver glow of magic. The wooden frame smelled faintly of wood oil, and the carvings of dancing goblins seemed deeper and more sculptural now that the cocoon of dust was no more.

The mirror creaked with age. It was the sound of a thing that felt pampered and was subsequently in a generous mood.

"Dost thou suppose it has worked?" queried the knight.

"Only one way to find out," answered the dwarf quietly. He drew himself up to his full height- roughly three feet tall- and announced, "Show us Sarah."

Hoggle, Sir Didymus, and Ludo gazed eagerly as a cloudy form appeared in the mirror, lengthening and darkening into a human figure. A female human figure.

Her.

A long moment of reverence passed.

"Sawah," said Ludo, cutting into the silence at last. "Sawah fwend."

"I… I reckon we can try and get her attention," said Hoggle, who was unable to tear his eyes away from the young woman. "I don't know how well the sound'll carry through it after all these years."

Sir Didymus winced at the thought of peering into a young woman's bedchamber unannounced. "Would it not be imprudent to call upon my lady in the dead of night? Perhaps she might be asleep or unprepared for uninvited guests-"

A dry scraping noise rent the air; the sound of a very long, thick claw scraping slowly down the wood of a rather thin door.

"…Or, we could try just going right through the mirror," added Hoggle hastily. As the scraping noise intensified- clearly, more of the things outside decided they wanted to sample the wares in the room- the three creatures decided that this was an excellent course of action.

Hoggle gripped the wooden mirror frame in both hands and hoisted a foot up as if to kick through the glass. Instead, it disappeared neatly into the glass as though penetrating the surface of a pond. Hoggle started, as though slapped.

"What wrong?" asked Ludo, clearly nervous.

"No, it's just chilly," said Hoggle, shivering. He swung his other foot up, stumbled briefly, and then disappeared into the mirror with nary a ripple as though he'd never been there at all.

Suddenly, an ear-splitting howl rent the air and the violent scratching against the door began anew. Sir Didymus and Ludo leapt into action, and with a bit of fumbling, and a great deal of glancing nervously over their shoulders, they climbed into the mirror themselves. The door smashed open and a flurry of shadows with long, spindly arms poured into the room. They searched the room, frantically in pursuit of their prey, but it was too late. The fox, the dwarf, and the giant were gone.


	2. Chapter 1

Ch 1

Ch 1

Hoggle cursed under his breath as he slipped off a polished wood surface and landed on the hardwood floor below. Rubbing his bottom with a wince, he climbed to his feet to examine his surroundings. He was in an Aboveground living room. The portal he had just exited was a hallway mirror placed over a long wooden table covered with white envelopes and a flower pot containing orchids that did not smell real.

The table did not look particularly study.

"Ludo!" whispered Hoggle under his breath. Sir Didymus's face appeared in the mirror, and the little knight clambered out. "What's that, my good man?" asked Didymus, brushing dust off his arms.

"Keep it down, we have to stay quiet," Hoggle hissed through his teeth. "Stop Ludo, he'll smash the table and we'll get caught!" Didymus looked with alarm at the mirror, where Ludo's enormous shaggy leg was already peeking out. He grabbed the mirror, and in a feat of surprising strength, he removed it from its perch on the wall, precariously carrying the odd configuration of hallway décor and emerging red body over to Hoggle, who grabbed the bottom. Didymus, holding the top of the mirror, hopped to the floor and the two of them hurriedly carried the mirror a few feet to the right. It was growing heavier by the second as more and more of Ludo emerged, and they struggled to lower it to the ground. At last, Ludo's face and body emerged and he clambered out of the portal safely. The red giant shook dust off his shaggy fur as his eyes wandered around the living room, where he stuck out like a sore thumb against the elegant décor.

"Find Sawah," he announced softly. With that, the three of them began to search for their friend. Surely she was close by; emergency portals led to the closet mirror in range of the person sought after. The house was dark and silent in the dead of night, except for a light on in the kitchen. That was where they headed.

They quietly peeked inside the kitchen from the doorway. A young woman was carefully opening drawers and poring through the contents as though in search of something. She would occasionally lift a butter knife or an appliance and peer at it before quietly settling it back in its drawer in disgust. She was wearing a white bathrobe over blue pajamas and stood in a pair of bedroom slippers. Lifting the plastic cutlery tray that organized the forks, butter knives, and spoons, she slowly drew out a small carving knife hidden underneath, raising it her eye-level. It gleamed ferociously in the clean kitchen light.

"Sawah," said Ludo, ambling into the kitchen almost helplessly, like a moth approaches a flame.

Sarah's head shot up and she froze like a deer in the headlights. She blinked, knife still in hand, and her wide eyes traveled over the three figures in the doorway. "Ludo?" she breathed, setting the knife down. "Hoggle? S-Sir Didymus?"

Sir Didymus removed his hat with a flourish and bowed deeply. "My lady, a thousand apologies for our intrusion, but we are greatly in need of thy aid. Wouldst thou help us in our time of need?"

Sarah only blinked, then looked down at the knife. "I'm imagining things," she said softly. She shook her head as though trying to shake something out, and then slipped the knife into her robe pocket. "I'm imagining things," she repeated uncertainly, and began shutting all the drawers that hung open. Still, she glanced periodically at them from the corner of her vision as she worked.

"Sarah, you ain't dreaming," insisted Hoggle, stepping fully into the kitchen from behind Ludo. "Please, you's got to believe us. We need yer help."

Sarah bit her lip, shook her head, and furrowed her brow in turmoil. Still ignoring them, she began to stash the last pile of cutlery on the counter back in its drawer the way she'd found it.

Ludo took another step forward, tentatively placing his enormous hand on Sarah's shoulder. When he spoke, his great rasping voice was hopeful. "Sawah fwend? Sawah help fwends?"

The faith in his voice- the absolute, puppylike certainty that she would come through for her old friends- was her undoing. Her resolve seemed to crumble, and she shuddered, then turned fully to face her friends in the doorway.

"So… then it did really happen," she whispered. Her voice sounded preternaturally old, like it had rusted over and become overgrown with weeds. "The… the l-labyrinth was real."

"Yes, my lady!" exclaimed Didymus, only to be kicked in the shin by Hoggle. "Yes, my lady," he repeated in a hushed tone. "Indeed, it was." At that, Hoggle nodded.

Sarah hesitantly raised her hand and delicately rested it on Ludo's where it still lay on her shoulder. "Hi guys," she said weakly. "What… what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

Her sleeve slipped down as her hand raised, and they could all see the white gauze bandage around her wrist. With that, Hoggle snapped out of the haze of joy at seeing his first friend and scrutinized her fully.

Sarah appeared to be a fully grown Aboveground mortal now with the requisite curves and height, and she had clearly blossomed into a heart-stoppingly beautiful woman. But she looked… sick. Her skin was pallid and clammy, like a corpse flushed with only the faintest glow of life. Her hair hung in limp, defeated strands, and her eyes were strangely glassy and feverish.

Sensing a shift in the room's atmosphere, Sarah nervously licked her chapped lips and lowered her hand to hang at her side. "What?"

"My lady, art thou well?" asked Didymus delicately. "Your wrist…"

"Oh, that," Sarah said hurriedly. "I got into a little accident is all."

"Sarah, you look real pale," said Hoggle worriedly. "What-"

"I've been sick," said Sarah, with an edge to her tone now that marked the end of that line of conversation. "But I'm getting better. So," she softened again, "you guys said you needed help with something?"

"Sawah tree dying," rumbled Ludo, shaking his head. "Tree sick."

"My tree? What tree?"

"Please, Lady Sarah, you must return with us to the Labyrinth. Time is of the essence, and we can explain the details in transit. But please believe me when I tell you that our kingdom is in peril and only you can save us."

"Yeah, Sarah. You've gotta help us."

Sarah's voice was flat and disbelieving. "Go back to the Labyrinth?"

"Save Sawah tree," added Ludo helpfully.

"Well, what about…" she swallowed. "What about… Jareth?"

Hoggle hesitated. "Sarah, he ain't gonna harm a hair on your head. In fact, no one's even sure where he is. That's part of the problem we needed to talk to you about, in fact."

"Wherever he is, I doubt very much he'd want me back in his Labyrinth."

Hoggle and Didymus exchange a glance. How could they explain that whole can of worms to her? Didymus looked up at Sarah pleadingly. "Please, my Lady, we would not disrupt thee in the dead of night after all these years were it not a most grievous emergency."

Sarah paused for a long moment, staring down at her feet in thought. She glanced back over her shoulder at the empty stairwell, which continued to do an excellent impression of an empty stairwell. She turned to her friends, and peered at each of them in turn.

She laughed softly, then shook her head and then laughed again. "Sure, why not," she said. There was something a bit off about her voice. "Sure, I'll go. Let's all go back to the Labyrinth.

A combination of fatherly concern and gut-gnawing fear crept over Hoggle, but before he could voice his unease, a woman's voice could be heard from upstairs. "Sarah? Where are you?"

"Let's go," whispered Sarah, "Right now."

Didymus hissed excitedly, "Come, my lady, let us make haste!" He shepherded them all over to the hallway mirror that still leaned against the wall. Footsteps could be heard now, thumping down the stairs. "Sarah?" called the voice, louder now. "You aren't in the kitchen, are you?"

Ludo, defying all laws of physics, clambered into the tiny mirror and disappeared into the other side. Hoggle soon followed, as did Didymus, and then eventually Sarah, who had resigned herself to the inherent weirdness of the situation. Karen's footsteps were approaching, and Sarah hurried into position. The cool, liquid surface of the mirror was bitingly cold at first touch, but she acclimated to it surprisingly fast. It felt a little uncomfortable going up her nostrils, but she shut her eyes and climbed into the other side, where her feet found purchase on a stone floor.

She opened her eyes.


	3. Chapter 2

Ch 3

The sun was lazily sauntering upwards. Patches of it shone dimly through the branches in the copse of trees, glittering like old metal. Sarah was standing beneath the shade of a tree that, inexplicably, had a full-length mirror nailed to its trunk. They were in a hilly glen with a river coursing by not far away. In the distance, they could see the forest where Sarah had encountered the Fireys, and beyond that, the castle and the Goblin city.

Sarah didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Ten minutes ago, she had been on a feverish, clandestine search through the kitchen drawers for something sharp. Karen had pointedly hidden all the toxic chemicals, knives, glasses, and porcelain; anything that could be ingested or shattered to produce a jagged edge. The most humiliating moment of the week, strangely, had not been her forced return to her childhood home for supervision;

nor was it Karen's apologetic "open bedroom door" policy, or having to explain the nature of her abrupt disappearance over the phone to her boss. It was, instead, her family's new mealtime practice of using Styrofoam plates and plastic utensils, as the dangerous china and stainless steel had been hidden away ever since her father and stepmother had driven her home from the hospital. Her serendipitous discovery of a sole forgotten paring knife wedged in the back of a drawer had been a scorchingly bright nimbus of triumph in her miserable day… until three impossible ghosts of her childhood had dropped in out of nowhere to pull her into an achingly real hallucination.

She pinched herself. It hurt. She slid her feet out of her slippers and dug her toes into the soft, springy grass. She ran her hands through her hair and laughed nervously, still reeling from what had just happened.

"What is this place?" she asked. "I never saw it while I was here."

"Come, let us walk and I shall tell you," said Didymus. They began striding purposefully down the hill. "This is the Glen of Avarice. Mind your step- don't pick anything up."

"Pick what up?" She looked down and saw that the grass had markings on it. She stooped down for a closer look and was astonished to discover that each individual blade of grass was a tightly rolled up American dollar bill. They felt as soft as fresh grass under her feet, but there was no mistaking the little sliver of George Washington's face on each blade.

She stood up and looked at the trees. The trunks seemed to be constructed out of millions of Japanese yen that were held together by a thick layer of rust. The leaves were composed of lira, Euros, rupees, and many other currency bills Sarah could not identify. Enormous precious stones hung like fruit from the trees, swaying gently in the wind. Blunt chunks of diamonds that could possibly fetch enough to feed an entire village in India jutted from the ground, and strings of black pearls entwined like ivy around tree trunks.

Sarah found that her initial delight at the opulence was short-lived; she was overcome by the inherent _wrongness_ of the scene. It felt unnatural, like a heinous parody of nature. An electric shiver of unease whispered over her skin.

"Sarah!" called Hoggle from the distance. Startled out of her reverie, she jogged over to her friends. "Keep up," said Hoggle, hurrying through the thicket. Sarah found his total lack of interest in the money surprising, given his penchant for hoarding precious treasures. Hoggle stumbled over a gold nugget the size of a football and quickly righted himself. "Come on, this place ain't safe."

"Why are we in this place?" Sarah bit out. Her left foot was starting to hurt strangely.

"We must leave the Glen of Avarice and find thy tree," said Sir Didymus, hopping over an upraised tree root made out of pennies. Ludo walked into a tangle of vines made of stringed pearls and moaned in agitation, eventually tearing them apart in a cacophony of flying white spheres.

"What is this about a tree?" Sarah's burning foot was not helping matters. "Can someone please explain what the hell is going on?"

"It's like this," said Hoggle. "Everytime someone goes through the Labyrinth, they leave something behind. An impression of their dreams. That's what the Labyrinth's made of. Everyplace you see- the hedge mazes, the Forest, the False Alarms- they were all created from the little bits of dreams. Some leave a bigger impression than others, o' course. It took more than 5,000 dreams to create the Bog of Eternal Stench, but only one to make the oubliette you fell into."

"So does that mean that you guys are made of dreams?"

Hoggle scoffed, clearly affronted. "No, o' course not! We just live here. The dreams are building blocks; they give us a home. It's the spirit of the Labyrinth that builds itself."

Sarah chewed on this for a minute. "So did I leave something behind?"

"Surely you recall the pit of the enchanted peach you ate?" replied Didymus. Sarah didn't miss Hoggle's wince at the mention of his betrayal, and she reach out and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. She tried to ignore the increased burning in her foot. "That pit grew into an enormous tree," Didymus continued, "the likes of which no one has ever seen. I daresay it has grown even taller than the highest tower of the castle."

Sarah couldn't help but smile at that image.

"Its roots pushed away the junkyard and its aura enchanted the soil, creating a haven of arable land. It wasn't long before it was venerated. Families of goblins built their homes under its shade and partook of its endless bounty of fruit. The soil around it for half a mile was the richest in the land, and the best for growing crops. It was said that a ring of magic surrounded it, granting good fortune and excellent health. It wasn't long before the land beneath that tree became one of the most beautiful spots in the Labyrinth."

"But I thought everything in the Labyrinth was an obstacle? I mean, the oubliettes, the bog… they were all there to stop me from getting to the castle."

Hoggle brushed some flecks of silver off his shoulder. "Not everything was an obstacle. The helping hands, the bridge in the bog; they were all useful. Well, not very much, but you get the idea."

"It is not fully understood exactly how a dream impression will manifest itself," said Didymus, still hopping nimbly. "But some say that that the nature of the runner reflects what they will leave behind. And remember; a majority of those who transverse the Labyrinth are… shall we say, not the kindest of souls; thus, the appearance of dangerous or simply annoying constructs."

Sarah heard the unspoken thoughts in his pause and mentally filled them in. _Selfish wastes of space. _It stung a bit, as she remembered that she too ran the Labyrinth as a result of her own selfishness and immaturity.

"The Glen of Avarice is constructed from the greed of those who favor wealth over the children they wish away. It is assembled largely from the dreams of relatively small minded people, so thousands of individual dreams built this place. However, the more potent the dream, the more grand the construct. And being that you are the first person to ever solve the Labyrinth, I can say with no hesitation that the only person who has ever contributed more to the Labyrinth than you is King Jareth himself."

Sarah nearly tripped. "What?!"

"Indeed, my lady. The castle itself is built out of the Goblin King's dreams."

They paused their conversation, having reached the brook running through the glen. Instead of water, a foamy, gold-colored liquid swirled and eddied by, carrying tiny gems in the current. Searching briefly for a means to get across, Didymus soon discovered an old log that had fallen across the pond, composed entirely of Canadian toonies. After testing its stability under Ludo's massive bulk, they gingerly made their way across the coin log, the coins crunching under their feet. This reminded Sarah uncomfortably of their trek across the stepping stones Ludo had summoned from the depths of the Bog of Eternal Stench, and for one horrid moment, she wondered if the yellow tide consisted of bodily wastes. But that couldn't be right; it was bubbly and the heady aroma smelled of weddings and festive evenings. _It's a river of champagne_, she marveled, stepping onto terra firma once more to continue hurrying on at her previous pace.

Then, she recalled their conversation from earlier and shivered at the mention of the Goblin King. As hard as it had been to push away her fervent memories and beliefs in the Underground, she'd never been able to stop believing in Jareth at all. He sat like an indelible mark on her brain, resistant to the transitory nature of memory. It was like he didn't care that he needed to be forgotten and outgrown; he arrogantly clung like a ubiquitous blot to her daily waking thoughts… not to mention her dreams. When Sarah was younger, Jareth was an amalgamation of regal haughtiness, villainous perfidy and ruthlessness. As she grew older, she was alarmed that some more slippery characteristics began to enter the mix- such as the aura of deeply sexual menace and predatory wherewithal that she'd been too young to fully understand.

She said, "Wait, you guys said that Jareth is missing. What's happened to him?"

Hoggle hesitated, then spoke haltingly. "That's what all of this is about. Two weeks ago, something changed. Your peach tree… it died. The peaches all withered up, the leaves fell off, and the dirt went dry as a bone around its roots. The crops died in the village beneath it. People started getting sick and wolves started coming into the boundaries at night to carry of their livestock. Everything went wrong around it.

"Jareth got real agitated. He used to come to visit that tree every night anyway, so he…"

Hoggle paused, realizing he'd said too much.

"Go on," said Sarah, ignoring her intrigue at that little revelation. As well as the singeing feeling of her foot.

"He… he noticed the changes right away, and he started flying off as an owl all the time. Wouldn't tell no one where he was going o' course, but he'd stay away longer and longer. He ain't come back in four days now. I ain't gonna miss the rat, but we needs a king and someone to protect us from the Kindly Ones."

The name was spoke in a hushed tone, the way one might speak of any wild-eyed, slavering horror that waited under beds or inside closets.

"What are the Kindly Ones?"

They had been crashing through the glittering brambles and vines, stomping through puddles of champagne, and picking bits of topaz and garnet out of their fur and hair.

Abruptly, they emerged from the thicket into startlingly bright sunlight. The money grass ended neatly at a high stone wall that stretched as far as the eye could see. There was an entrance with a stone archway not too far from them, and they made their way towards it.

"We're almost out of the Glen. Now remember, make sure you ain't got nothing in yer pockets, nothing in yer hair or clothes. You don't want to take a single thing with you out of the Glen of Avarice; it's real bad luck." Hoggle began brushing down his arms, and legs, and clothes, and the rest of them followed suit, flicking the occasional glittering speck off of their skin or hair. When they were content that they were clean, they passed through the archway into a stone maze not unlike the one in which Sarah had first met Hoggle.

"Hoggle, what are the Kindly Ones?" Sarah repeated. It was hard to ignore her foot, which was burning like crazy now. She was resolute, however not to be a whiny little brat like before.

"The Kindly Ones… well, let's just say they ain't what you'd call kindly at all. They look like really long shadows, but are shaped kind of like monkeys with really long arms. They're attracted to the sound of heartbeats, and will do whatever it takes to listen more closely to the sound of your pulse… even if it means ripping you apart to get rid of the flesh that's in the way between them and your heart."

Appalled, Sarah noticed her own heartbeat quickening at the horrific description. Hoggle shuddered, as though recalling a gruesome memory. "They don't even seem to realize that there'll be no more heartbeat to listen if they do that; they just move on to find another one and the whole thing starts again. Persistant buggers too; they'll hunt you for days without giving up once they target you."

"To think, our once noble Labyrinth is now home to such abominations! Why, in my day, we would never-"

"I'm sorry, but I need to stop for a minute." Sarah couldn't stand the burning in her foot any more. She slipped her foot out of bedroom slipper and leaned against the cool stone wall, grabbing her ankle to raise the bottom of her foot to the light. A dark red blister had formed on the dry, cracked skin. She gingerly touched it and then hissed with pain.

"Sarah hurt?" rumbled Ludo, concerned.

"I don't understand how this happened," she said. She picked up her fuzzy slipper and checked the underside. A single rolled up dollar bill was stuck to the underside, surrounded by a dark ring of scorched plastic.

"Oh god, it's money from the Glen!" cried Hoggle. "We have to take it back, right now! Oh Sarah, this is _bad_, we have to go back, we have to—"

A low growl rumbled behind them; a nightmarish sound like the metallic groan of sunken ships settling into the ocean bed, teeth rending coils of throbbing viscera, and crazed bloodlust lit only by the moon.

Very slowly, Sarah and her friends turned around.

* * *

I promise, there'll be some J/S interaction soon. This is, after all, about them.

The Kindly Ones are a euphemism for the Furies of Roman mythology, or the Greek Erinyes. Other than this, I don't plan on introducing a lot of plot elements that I'll need to do a lot of research for. I'm writing this for fun and I don't want to start treating this story like I would a school project.

Reviews would be most kind.

* * *


End file.
